Merging Into Life: Renting a Car Internationally

[00:01:50]
Terry Abromitis: My name is Terry Abromitis and I go by Traveling Terry.

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Amanda Greene: Traveling Terry makes content about her life while traveling. She was kind enough to speak to us from a cottage in the Cotswolds, a region in central southwest England.

[00:02:04]
Terry Abromitis: I mean in the movie, The Holiday, this is exactly what it looks like.

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Amanda Greene: Really? I love that movie.

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Terry Abromitis: Like today I was just driving around the Cotswolds and it is stunningly beautiful here. I had the windows down and it is like the most beautiful scenery and it’s all these narrow roads that you would go down, that you see in the movies and farms on either side with sheep and horses, maybe a few cars here and there, but I was just like, “This is not what you see on the train.”

[00:02:32]
Amanda Greene: So I guess you’re kind of limited when you’re using public transportation about where you can go. You’re also sticking to a schedule, so the benefits of renting a car, you can go wherever you want whenever you want. What else?

[00:02:44]
Terry Abromitis: I travel alone most of the time, but people that travel with their family, it is so much easier than getting four people on trains, not missing it, keeping all the tickets together. Being able to just load everyone in a car whenever everybody’s ready for it is just it’s so much easier. Or if you’re driving somewhere and you pass this adorable place, you can just pull over, see it, explore it, change your schedule around.

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Amanda Greene: Yeah. It sounds like renting a car is giving you a better chance to kind of curate your experience to what you’re looking for rather than just like here is the route we can take.

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Terry Abromitis: Right. And I like to kind of do things a little bit on a whim. I like to figure out my schedule as I’m going because some days I’ve got more energy to do things. Some days I want to just take a day.

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Amanda Greene: What’s the best place you’ve ever visited that you couldn’t have seen using public transportation?

[00:03:34]
Terry Abromitis: I went to Lucerne, Switzerland. Actually, I stayed outside of Lucerne the first time that I rented a car, and I finally got to kind of expand my search for a place to stay because I knew I was going to have a car so I didn’t have to limit where I was going to be. Usually I have to be in walking distance to a train station or easy cab ride, and this was a little harder. So I found this adorable bee house on a farm with views overlooking Lake Lucerne.

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Amanda Greene: How was having a rental car, your own wheels necessary to have that experience?

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Terry Abromitis: Well, first of all, I do like to pack not so lightly. I like to pack really heavy, so to have a car and not worry about schlepping my bags onto a train and off a train and all of that is just less stress for me. But this farm had a long dirt road to get to it. I think the only way to really do it with public transportation was to take a train into Lucerne than there’s some kind of a bus that takes you to some stop. Then you have to walk up this dirt road, which is really long past cows. And it just would’ve been really challenging. And then I wanted to go into the city, so I would have to then do that every time I wanted to go see something in the city or to get anywhere else.

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Amanda Greene: It sounds like you’ve really had the chance to see a lot of cool things because you worked past all of those perceived obstacles that you kind of thought were going to be there with renting a car and now you’re super comfortable doing it because you’ve done it over and over again.

[00:05:02]
Terry Abromitis: Yeah. Once I got over the initial fear and I did it and realized it’s really not that hard, exactly.

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Amanda Greene: What about things like gas prices? Should we expect to pay more when we’re traveling?

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Terry Abromitis: It’s pretty expensive here. Yes. And it’s by the liter. So for me, I usually have a difficult time telling how it compares to the US, but when I fill up an entire tank of gas, I usually can figure out is it more or less. And typically it’s double what I would pay to fill up my car.

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Amanda Greene: And then what about tolls and maybe even getting a ticket?

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Terry Abromitis: Some countries have more tolls than others. I’m talking to Greece. They have tolls constantly, but the easy thing is that they pretty much all take credit cards or any kind of a card. So when you get up there, all you have to do is tap or insert and you go. So they make it really, really easy. When it comes to tickets, well, sometimes you get a surprise in the mail a few months later and then you realize you drove in a zone that you weren’t supposed to drive in.

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Amanda Greene: Did you get a ticket? This sounds like you’re speaking from experience.

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Terry Abromitis: I got it. Six months later. I got a ticket from Bologna because I did not realize that when I was driving to where I was staying, I went into their Zona traffico limitato which means like a limited traffic zone. So you have to have a special permit. And that is one that you want to make sure that you don’t drive there or if you’re staying at a hotel that’s in the zone, a lot of times you can call the hotel ahead and they will take your license plate and they report it to the police so that you don’t get a ticket. So definitely do that.

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Amanda Greene: Are there any other stressors that come up when renting abroad?

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Terry Abromitis: Narrow roads, narrow parking spaces, finding parking, which oftentimes is very easy. If you’re using a navigation app, the one that I use, you can actually look for public parking areas in the city and then you can navigate to it. The biggest thing would be if you’re traveling during a peak time and it’s really crowded, then you may have trouble finding a spot somewhere.

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Amanda Greene: What do you think about all the roundabouts? That’s something that I think is a little more common in other countries.

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Terry Abromitis: Try doing it in a country that’s driving on the other side.

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Amanda Greene: Oh.

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Terry Abromitis: So yeah.

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Amanda Greene: Wowy.

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Terry Abromitis: When I first got to the UK, the first time that I rented here, it was completely against my natural instincts of where to look, where to be in the roundabout. So I do have a tip.

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Amanda Greene: Yes.

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Terry Abromitis: If you’re driving in another country that drives on the other side, you need to start getting your muscle memory to switch. You have to look right and it’s hard to get used to that. That’s probably the biggest challenge I’ve had. So I have entered a roundabout without looking and not realizing it until I got into the roundabout, and luckily I got in there safely. But you definitely want to practice a little bit, but it can be intimidating.

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Amanda Greene: Intimidating, but fascinating. We in the Northeastern United States have roundabouts, but they aren’t as baked into our everyday driving as they are for some people in other parts of the world. So if we’re going to drive abroad, let’s try to remove any negative feelings and learn to love traffic circles. We’ll come back to Terry in a minute, but in the meantime, I’d like to introduce you to someone.

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Kevin Beresford: My name is Kevin Beresford and I’m the president of the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society, also known as Lord of the Rings. That’s my official title.

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Amanda Greene: Love that. The Roundabout Appreciation Society, that’s amazing. Tell me more.

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Kevin Beresford: Well, we call them roundabouts, but the French call them giratoires I think the Americans call them circles and a lot of people call them traffic islands. So they’re just a way of filtering traffic through a roundabout piece of architecture.

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Amanda Greene: So Lord of the Rings, how do you get a title like that?

[00:08:47]
Kevin Beresford: Back in 2003, I ran a small printing company in a town called Redditch, and Redditch at the time was a new town and we didn’t have a lot going for us. We had, this is true, by the way, we had three prisons but no cinema. But what we did have was a copious amount of roundabouts, and each year we wanted to come up with a calendar that reflected Redditch, and so we chose roundabouts for this calendar for that year in 2003. What we didn’t realize, it went viral. It sold worldwide. It was on the TV. I did interviews from all around the world. It was just meant for a joke initially, but then I thought, I got interested in it, these amazing round pieces of architecture. And so the roundabouts of Redditch, Canada spawned the best of British roundabouts, which we do now, which I’m very busy at the moment producing.

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Amanda Greene: So that first calendar that featured roundabouts of Redditch spawned almost a way of life for you. When I picture a roundabout, I think of a roadway around a patch of grass. Kevin, what are you seeing that I’m not?

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Kevin Beresford: I mean, I’ve seen paintings, statues, planes, trains, churches, pubs. I mean, up in Yorkshire, in England, we’ve got a windmill on a roundabout that produces flour. And that’s my whole point, anything can go on a roundabout and that’s what makes them so special. We see a roundabout as an oasis on a sea of asphalt.

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Amanda Greene: That’s a great way of looking at it.

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Kevin Beresford: There’s a listed duck pond down in Otford and in the middle of that duck pond, in this traffic island, there’s a little hut where all the ducks live and the locals call that Duckingham Palace.

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Amanda Greene: Oh.

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Kevin Beresford: Now, only roundabouts could boast that. Traffic lights can’t boast that, can they? Our society hates traffic lights. You have to stop when they tell you, you have to go when they tell you. But with a roundabout, it suits the British sort of sense of decorum and etiquette. You choose where you want to go in the traffic flow and you join it at your own speed, and you new exit it. It’s so quintessentially English, the roundabout.

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Amanda Greene: Kevin, you make it sound so simple. For the intimidated or unsure, give us the basics. How do you navigate a roundabout?

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Kevin Beresford: The only one simple rule, is so easy, roundabouts, is you just yield to the traffic on the right. That’s all you have to do, is yield to the traffic on the right. You’re with me? That’s it. That’s it.

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Amanda Greene: And that role stands for all the countries that drive on the left as they do in the UK. But I will note that if you’re like the other two thirds of the global population who drives on the right, yield to the left.

[00:11:25]
Kevin Beresford: But that’s it.

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Amanda Greene: What else do you like about roundabouts?

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Kevin Beresford: By installing roundabouts, there’s been a tremendous amount of research. Okay?

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Amanda Greene: There has.

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Kevin Beresford: In America, they know it’s the safest form of filtering traffic. Okay? Because everyone’s going in the same direction. If you have a collision on a roundabout, right? It’s just a sideswipe. There’s no head- on collision. But they’re also greener. When it comes to traffic lights, it’s stop and go, stop and go, which is not good for the ecology of it all. But with a roundabout, everything’s constantly moving. Don’t you find traffic lights irritating when you have to stop when there’s nothing going past, yeah? But with a roundabout, everything’s…

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Amanda Greene: Still flowing. What are some of the disadvantages? There are none.

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Kevin Beresford: It’s safer, more efficient, it’s greener. Where is a disadvantage of it?

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Amanda Greene: Well, there you have it. There’s nothing to be scared of. And as Kevin says, all you have to do is yield to oncoming traffic and go at your own pace. With his enthusiasm, I’m almost looking forward to trying a roundabout on the opposite side of the road. Let’s get back to Traveling Terry. Let’s switch gears a little bit, renting a car and some of the things that we need to know. For example, do you get an international driver’s license? Is that something we need?

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Terry Abromitis: I do. There’s a debate of whether you need an IDP, an international driving permit when you rent a car in another country, and there are a lot of rental companies that may not ask you for it, but I am always in the camp of it is better to have something and not need it than to get somewhere and you don’t have it.

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Amanda Greene: Oh, a hundred percent. I’m with you. I would rather be extra prepared just in case, than be in a situation where I’m being asked for something that I don’t have.

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Terry Abromitis: I have been asked for it, I think once or twice, but had I shown up with no IDP, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I don’t know that they would’ve given me the car.

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Amanda Greene: Interesting. And how did you go about doing that?

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Terry Abromitis: It’s actually really easy. So AAA has a way to get an IDP really simply. They have an application on their website. I printed the application, I filled it out. I went and got my two little photos, passport type photos, and then I brought everything to a AAA location near me, and then it’s good for one year.

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Amanda Greene: How do you pick a rental company when you’re making a reservation in a country you’ve never been to before?

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Terry Abromitis: Well, I personally like to go through a third party app or third party website, and then that will generate several companies so I can choose which one. And it makes it easier to compare the prices than to go on every single brand’s website. And I most of the time will go by what is a brand I’m comfortable with. Sometimes I haven’t, but I’ve found there to be more comfort and easier rental situation with some of the more familiar brands and not the international brands., but sometimes they’re a little farther away from the airport than some of the bigger companies. So I use that and I will then filter it down to have an automatic transmission because I personally cannot use manual whether I’m in the US, in my driveway or anywhere. So I’m getting an automatic.

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Amanda Greene: I learned on a standard.

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Terry Abromitis: I can’t do it.

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Amanda Greene: And that is more common in Europe, right?

[00:14:47]
Terry Abromitis: And it’s usually less expensive for renting, especially you’re going to rent in the UK or in a country that drives on the other side. You have to remember that if you’re getting a manual, even if you’re good at it, that’s going to be your left hand. So it’s-

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Amanda Greene: Ooh.

[00:15:02]
Terry Abromitis: … an extra.

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Amanda Greene: That’s a really good point.

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Terry Abromitis: Yeah.

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Amanda Greene: Didn’t cross my mind.

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Terry Abromitis: Yep.

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Amanda Greene: Wow. Okay. So if we can get an automatic, is there anything else that Americans might be surprised about vehicles in other countries?

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Terry Abromitis: They have very small vehicles, which sometimes might be easier to navigate certain streets and certain towns. I personally, I’m such an SUV girl, I cannot, my spatial recognition and spatial awareness on the sides of me are not good when I’m sitting low. So I typically filter it down by an SUV. I’ll try to get a compact SUV, but they have a lot of small mini options, which is also so much less expensive when you rent. So that’s something to consider as well.

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Amanda Greene: And probably less stressful with parking.

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Terry Abromitis: You can fit in a lot more places. That’s true.

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Amanda Greene: That’s good to know. What about insurance? How do you navigate that?

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Terry Abromitis: It’s very complicated to me. Some people have insurance through their credit cards. Some people get insurance when they first rent the car. Some people get insurance when they’re checking out and they’re upsold on the insurance. So that is something that you should probably look into and see what is the best fit for your personal situation.

[00:16:12]
Amanda Greene: I asked our very knowledgeable friends at AAA about insurance on a rental car, and this is what they said. If you’re driving within the United States and Canada, the coverage you have on your car is exactly the same as what you carry over to the rental car. No more, no less. So if you don’t have physical damage coverage on your personal cars, you won’t have it on those you rent. So you may need to purchase additional insurance. Some insurance companies will not cover loss of use of the rental car. So this may be something that you’d want to check out before relying on your existing policy. You have been on so many adventures. What’s your best driving in a foreign country story?

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Terry Abromitis: Well, one of the best adventures, I was not the one driving because this is a destination that I probably personally would not rent a car or drive in a rental car, and that would be the Amalfi Coast. Because the Amalfi Coast is right on the edge of a cliff. Then roads are narrow, especially going around really tight turns. And then you’ve got Vespas zipping around you, and then you also have these massive tourist buses that fly around the corner right at you. So I actually booked an experience where I got to ride passenger in a vintage Fiat 500, like 1952. It is so tiny. It was a little red, beautiful car. I had in my driver, Antonio, and he lives on the Amalfi Coast, so he knew what he was doing. We had a bus coming towards us. He knew exactly how to navigate around it, so we survived. I’m still here. But it is dicey on that road, but you don’t want to not go to the Amalfi Coast because of that.

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Amanda Greene: Do you have any last words of encouragement for someone who is about to take a trip considering renting in a foreign country? What kind of tips would you leave them with?

[00:18:05]
Terry Abromitis: The biggest thing is just having confidence and getting over the hurdle of thinking it’s really difficult or it’s something that a certain kind of a person does. If you know how to drive and you’re comfortable driving, you don’t want to miss out on some of these incredible parts of the world and these stunning destinations and experiences and people that you meet. And as somebody that travels solo, you also don’t want to wait for somebody else that has to take you.

So I just think it is something you don’t want to miss out on, and you don’t realize what you’re missing until you do it, and then it opens up like a whole new world for you. So for me, it was life- changing. I mean, now a road trip around Ireland or England, which I’m doing right now is not off the table for me anymore, and I don’t need to wait for somebody to go with me so I can do it. So I don’t want anyone else to miss out on any of those experiences.

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Amanda Greene: Before I let you go, we’re going to do a couple rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

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Terry Abromitis: Yeah.

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Amanda Greene: The best country to drive in?

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Terry Abromitis: Germany.

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Amanda Greene: The hardest country to drive in?

[00:19:12]
Terry Abromitis: Italy.

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Amanda Greene: The strangest rule of the road that you’ve come across?

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Terry Abromitis: The Italians not driving in any lane, but in the middle. It’s an unwritten rule of the road.

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Amanda Greene: So a lack of a rule. What’s the most lost you’ve ever gotten?

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Terry Abromitis: I did have trouble. I was driving through a very, very small town in Sicily. I was meeting somebody who lived there, and they lived in the center of this little city, and these roads were so narrow and I had an SUV like I was telling you, and I just could not get through. And then if I got too far and I couldn’t get through, then I had to backtrack backwards down the same tiny streets. So yes.

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Amanda Greene: It was that tight?

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Terry Abromitis: Yes, it was pull your mirrors in tight.

[00:19:54]
Amanda Greene: Wow.

[00:19:54]
Terry Abromitis: Yeah.

[00:19:55]
Amanda Greene: Wow.

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Terry Abromitis: That’s when you want to have the mini.

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Amanda Greene: Good tip. I was looking at your social media content and you’ve gone on some really great adventures. What were some of the most exciting modes of transportation you’ve taken?

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Terry Abromitis: Oh, I’ve got a lot. I’ve taken a couple of sidecar tours, Florence, Normandy, and then recently around Amsterdam. I’ve done the vintage Fiat 500. I went in a Ferrari.

[00:20:19]
Amanda Greene: Okay.

[00:20:19]
Terry Abromitis: From Bologna to the Ferrari Museum.

[00:20:22]
Amanda Greene: Okay. You must have felt very fancy in a Ferrari.

[00:20:24]
Terry Abromitis: I did. It was me and an Italian man. And then he all of a sudden we get off the highway and we’re on this road, and he looks over at me and was like, “Do you want to drive?” And I said, ” Are you sure you want to trust me with that?” And then I look and it is an automatic transmission, so I was like, “At least I know I could drive it physically.” So I said “YOLO,” and I got in the driver’s seat and I drove that Ferrari.

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Amanda Greene: That’s amazing. Thank you so much for coming on and giving us a little taste of your life and sharing all of your adventures. We really appreciate it.

[00:20:56]
Terry Abromitis: Thank you for having me.

[00:20:59]
Amanda Greene: You know what? I think I’m going to do it. Terry has inspired me to get out of my comfort zone and get behind the wheel, see more things. But first, I think I’m going to have to go back and give our budget episode a listen, because driving in Europe is one thing, but paying for a trip is another.

You’ve been listening to Merging into Life where we navigate life’s milestones one episode at a time, brought to you by AAA Northeast with assistance from JAR Audio. I’m your host, Amanda Greene. If you’re learning as much as I am, follow us wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. We would love to know what you think. Email us at podcast@aaanortheast.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of AAA Northeast, AAA, and or its affiliates.